Here’s a sentence that I translated from Chinese. My American friend just proofread it for me, but we had an disagreement over the word “cause”. He said that I should’ve use “cause” instead of “causes”, but he didn’t know why. He said that it felt odd to use “causes”. Could anyone explain it to me regarding why I should use “cause”?
Here’s the sentence:
It’s not inappropriate to focus on eliminating highly susceptible places or circumstances for fire, but the problem is: Are illegal rooftop subletted rooms the only factor that causes such tragedies?
Please let me know if there’s anything else in my sentence that’s weirdly constructed, thank you!